Do I Need To Have A Booster Polio Vaccination?
Polio seems to have returned and cases are rising in North-East London, where I live.
I was vaccinated using an injecton in the 1950s, so it must have been the Salk vaccine.
In today’s Sunday Times, there is an article, which is entitled A Little More Vaccination: Elvis Presley And The Race To Beat Polio, where this is said.
Sabin’s live vaccine could be swallowed as a drop on a sugar cube. This mimics the route that the virus takes naturally, entering the body’s gut. Salk’s dead virus had to be injected. Most importantly, it turned out that Sabin’s vaccine could give lifelong immunity, while Salk’s only protected for a few years.
As it is more than a few years, since I was vaccinated, do I need a booster?
Germans Turn To Humour In ‘Spritzkrieg’ On Antivaxers
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
A German television show has proposed a plan to persuade far-right antivaxers to get jabbed by offering them free swastika-shaped Bratwursts, dressing staff up as Nazi nurses and calling the vaccination centre Spritzkrieg (Jab War).
Reading the article it sounds like the Germans have asked Mel Brooks for advice.
We should use humour much more against the covids. Or does it have protection under the Virus Rights Act?
The Times says there is a clip on YouTube, but I can’t find it.
Thanks to Robin, here is the video.
If there was an British mockumentary in the same vein perhaps Call The Midwife or Casualty should be given the Blackadder treatment?
Historic Go-Ahead For Malaria Vaccine To Protect African Children
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the first paragraph.
Children across much of Africa are to be vaccinated against malaria in a historic moment in the fight against the deadly disease.
The vaccine has been developed by GSK, who have their headquarters on the Golden Mile in Brentford.
The vaccine is called RTS,S and is described like this in the first paragraph of its Wikipedia entry.
RTS,S/AS01 (trade name Mosquirix) is a recombinant protein-based malaria vaccine.
Approved for use by European regulators in July 2015, it is the world’s first licensed malaria vaccine and also the first vaccine licensed for use against a human parasitic disease of any kind. The RTS,S vaccine was conceived of and created in the late 1980s by scientists working at SmithKline Beecham Biologicals (now GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines) laboratories in Belgium. The vaccine was further developed through a collaboration between GSK and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and has been funded in part by the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Its efficacy ranges from 26 to 50% in infants and young children. On 23 October 2015, the World Health Organization’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MPAC) jointly recommended a pilot implementation of the vaccine in Africa.
When you consider how fast the Covid-19 vaccines were developed, this might appear to have taken a long time to be developed. But then as Wikipedia states, “this is the first vaccine licensed for use against a human parasitic disease of any kind.”
I can’t describe this as anything other than good news.
Covid: 400-Person Wedding Party In Stamford Hill Broken Up By Police
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC,
I would have thought, that the organisers would have known better, as the Jewish community in Stamford Hill has suffered badly from th covids.
In Jews In The UK And COVID-19, which I wrote in May 2020, I did a simple analysis and said this.
From these simple figures Jews are over three times more likely to die of COVID-19, than the general population.
Walk around the area and their are signs up in Hebrew telling people to Stay Safe.
How can people be so stupid?
But that’s religion for you!
A Measles Epidemic
About a year ago, I was asked by my GP, if I had been vaccinated against measles.
I said no, but I have did have a bad case at about twenty-five, which I recounted in A Surprising Question From A Doctor.
He said fine and then added that there’s a measles epidemic in the North of the borough.
Apparently, the ultra-Orthodox Jews don’t have a high level of vaccination and a lot of children.
This worries me, as will they bother to get the vaccine for the covids.
They should listen to the eminently sensible Chief Rabbi.
Is The Pfizer Vaccine The New Betamax?
To me, the Pfizer vaccine may work well, but the precautions needed to deliver it safely are so onerous, I can’t see it being the most successful of vaccines.
If healthcare professionals and GP surgeries in the UK, are saying that the minus seventy delivery route is going to be difficult, then how difficult is it going to be to deliver it, in parts of India, Africa and South America.
I can’t see the current Pfizer vaccine lasting very long, before it is either overtaken by one of the many others vaccines under development or Pfizer reformulate it, so it has an easier method of delivery.
It truly is the new Betamax.
Thoughts On Mass Vaccination
We should steal an idea from the French.
In the first wave of the virus, they had to move seriously ill patients all over the country and to Germany, where there was bed space.
So they converted a TGV to a hospital train.
This page on the SNCF web site, is entitled Covid-10: Behind the Scenes Of Our High-Speed Hospital Train.
Could we not create a Vaccination Train using one of the recently withdrawn InterCity 125s?
They are easily shortened to any convenient length and the carriages have a very smooth ride.
The French converted their hospital train in 48 hours, so surely we can do as well!
The trains have the advantage, that they are certified go to over ninety percent of UK main line railway stations.
Network Rail have a track inspection train, called the New Measurement Train, that works a pattern all over the UK. It is based on an InterCity 125 and is full of delicate instruments, designed to keep the railways of the UK safe.
The picture shows Network Rail’s New Measurement Train at Westbury station.
The Vaccination Train or Trains could be based at a convenient central location, where the vaccine would be safely stored.
- Trains would be loaded overnight with the vaccine and other stores and locate early to their site for the day.
- Sites would typically be stations, where a platform existed that was long enough for the train.
- Staff to both process the vaccine and treat patients could either go on the train or be drawn from local medical staff, or be a mixture of the two.
- Specialists handling the vaccine would probably come from the centre, as this would ensure totally correct handling of the vaccine.
- They would set up at a suitable site and handle the patients booked for the day.
- Injections could even take place on the train, in specially fitted out carriages.
I would think, that the train would be self contained and generate all its own electricity.
China And US Snub Global Talks On Vaccine
The title of this post is the same as that of this article in The Times.
Judging by the list of those that turned up to the talks, the United States and China care less about the health of their people and the wider world than Saudi Arabia.
Should Campaigning Against Vaccination Be Made A Crime Against Humanity?
Boris is reported today on the BBC and in The Times, as saying that a coronavirus vaccine is the only way we will win.
Boris is totally right!
We will not be safe until everybody is vaccinated. Vaccination has virtually conquered diseases like smallpox, polio and measles.
Perhaps campaigning against vaccination, should be a crime against humanity!
I live in Hackney, where there is a lot of measles, caused by people being against the MMR vaccine. Will these idiots accept a vaccine for Covid-19?
The Joy Of Physics
On the One Show on BBC television, yesterday there was a report about a man called Ian Tansley, who has invented a vaccine fridge for use in places like Africa, where the electricity is not reliable.
This Wikipedia entry for Sure Chill Technology describes the technology and this report on the BBC, describes how the invention has been backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Physics to many is a dull subject at school, but to me, it’s the key to so many interesting inventions and ideas that will shape our lives in a better way.
The Anonymous Widower 